“OPEC” set to inject $ 50 billion in energy projects to cope with plummeting oil prices

OPEC has trimmed its forecast for growth in world consumption of crude over the coming decades, but says oil and gas will remain the globe’s main sources of energy.

The forecast is contained in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ 2016 world outlook.

The 14-nation cartel says total world oil demand will be 109 million barrels a day by 2040. That’s 400,000 barrels a day less than its last annual estimate but still a daily 16 million barrels more than at present.

Its report Tuesday says that oil and gas will provide around 53 percent of world energy demand by that time.

The report was issued ahead of an OPEC oil ministers’ Vienna meeting Nov.  28, focused on slightly reducing output to drive up prices.

Failure to implement a deal agreed in Algiers in September to cut overall oil output would bring negative consequences to an already fragile oil industry, the secretary-general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said on Tuesday.

“I remain confident that the message has sunk (in), that the consequences are clear and the experience of the past two years has been noted,” Mohammed Barkindo said at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (ADIPEC).

“Failing to implement the Algiers accord in full and timely fashion will bring negative consequences on the already fragile state of the industry,” he added.

Oil prices have more than halved in the past two years, pushed down by a glut in global supplies and hitting the budgets of major producers.

Since announcing their intention to cut production to a range of 32.5 to 33 million barrels per day following the Algiers meeting, discord among the world’s largest exporters has grown.

Libya, Nigeria, Iraq and Iran have clamored to be exempt from any reduction as they recover market share lost to civil unrest and, in the case of Tehran, international sanctions.

But S.G. Barkindo said Iran had assured him that it would stick to the Algiers agreement.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran played a very key role in the consensus that produced the Algiers accord,” Mr. Barkindo later told reporters.

“I have got it from the highest powers in Tehran personally that Iran is committed to implementing the decision they jointly took with other member countries in Algiers, and I am satisfied with that,” he emphasized.